Contents

OpenStreetMap Integration

Marble supports different map themes. One of them is OpenStreetMap's Mapnik tiles. They can be activated in the 'Map View' panel (bottom left) by clicking on the "OpenStreetMap" theme. It is also possible to create more map themes and define many tiles together thanks to an overlay and blending algorithm. Inside the OpenStreetMap map theme it's also possible to conveniently access the "Edit->Edit Map" menu entry. This will open JOSM, Merkaator or Potlatch for the current region that is being displayed in Marble.

Marble has a search function for POIs which queries nominatim.openstreetmap.org among other services.

Marble also has a tracking function to display current track, save it to kml.

Making a very high-res image

You can simply take a screenshot of Marble to get a fairly big image of an OpenStreetMap globe, but this is limited by your screen-resolution, and for printing you may want a high-er resolution (bigger) image.

This can be done by simulating a giant desktop. Most of these commands need to be executed in their own window or backgrounded with &)

with Ubuntu you will need the packages:xvfb x11vnc xvnc4viewer imagemagick netpbm

x11vnc -scale .5 -display :1the scale factor will make it easier to work with your big desktop - less scrollbars. You can even go so far as to use .1 or so because you only need the mouse to move the globe around.

vncviewer localhost :0this should open an empty window - yes :0 is correct here even though the rest has :1

DISPLAY=:1 marble -geometry 4096x4096+0+0or whatever resolution you used for Xvfb

now play with Marble until you like the picture

xwdtopnm < /tmp/marblefb/Xvfb_screen0 | pnmtopng > /tmp/marble.png

now you can terminate the lot and use /tmp/marble.png

Frederik Ramm used these techniques to create graphics for an OpenStreetMap flyer. [1]